We place a special emphasis on specialty veneers and distinct panelling products
We place a special emphasis on specialty veneers and distinct panelling products
Plywood is a manufactured wood panel made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, and re-usable, and usually can be manufactured locally.
The following grades are provided as guidelines to follow when determining what quality of plywood you're ordering. For more specific details, please contact us.
Color: Allows for slight color streaks, slight color variations, and no color contrasts at component joints. Minimum width of veneer components is 6" for plain slice and rotary cut, 3" for rift and quarter sawn.
Natural Color: Very strict limitations on size and frequency of pin knots and conspicuous burls. No mineral streaks, bark pockets, or vine marks allowed, and slight allowances for worm tracks.
Color: Same allowances as AA grade with one significant exception. Veneer components must only be 5" for plain sliced or rotary cut, while quarter and rift sawn components are the same as AA grade.
Natural Color: Grade A panels are a little less stringent on the number and size of conspicuous pin knots and burls on the face than AA panels. Also, A panels allow for slight mineral streaking, as well as slight vine marks.
Color: Color streaks are allowed, as are color variations on the face. Also, the required nominal widths of the veneer components are less: 4" for rotary cut, and 3" for plain sliced, quarter sawn, and rift cut panels.
Natural Color: A greater frequency or conspicuous burls and pin knots is allowed, as is a larger size of the burls and knots. Repaired knotholes are also acceptable (to a certain degree) as are bark pockets and worm tracks.
Color: This grade allows color streaks, spots, and variations at component joints. There is no minimum width for the veneer components.
Natural Color: No limitations on the number of small burls, pin knots or conspicuous burl sizes. This grade is less discriminating about the size of the repaired knots than a B grade. Also allowable under a C grade are mineral streaks, bark pockets, worm tracks, and vine marks to a greater extent than B grade.
Color: This grade allows color streaks, spots, and variations at component joints. There is no minimum width for the veneer components.
Natural Color: No limitations on the number of small burls, pin knots or conspicuous burl sizes. Larger size of repaired knots allowed (up to 3/4") and are allowed at a greater frequency than any of the aforementioned grades. Bark pockets up to 2" allowed.
Allowances: Sapwood, discoloration & stain, mineral streaks, sound tight knots and burls, no knotholes, repaired bark pockets, filled wormholes.
Allowances: Sapwood, discoloration & stain, mineral streaks, sound tight knots and burls, repaired knotholes (1/2"), repaired bark pockets, filled wormholes, limited number of repaired splits and joints.
Allowances: Larger knots allowed, unlimited number of knots up to 1/2". wormholes, bark pockets, splits and open joints.
Allowances: Only limits that apply are 4" knotholes, 1" limit on splits and joints. All aforementioned flaws unlimited on 4 back.
We offer a variety of plywood core types, each suited for different end uses.
This type of construction is usually 5-ply consisting of a face and back veneer, two crossbands, and a core composed of lumber strips that are edge glued to form a solid slab.
This type of construction is composed of an odd number of veneer plies. The middle ply is called the "center" and the plies on either side of the center are called "cross bandings." Outer plies are called "faces" and "backs." Panel thickness varies from 1/8 inches thick to 3/4 inches or more: 1/4 inch or less panels are normally 3-ply; while thicker panels are 5 to 11-ply or more.
The face and back veneers are applied directly to either a core of particleboard or medium density fibreboard.
The individual leaves of veneer in a sliced flitch increase or decrease as the slicing progresses. Thus, if a number of panels are manufactured from a particular flitch, the number or veneer leaves per panel face will change as the flitch is utilized. The manner in which the leaves are "laid up" within the panel requires book-matching, and are classified as follows:
Every other piece of veneer used in laying up an individual panel is turned over much like the pages of a book. Thus, the meeting edges produce a matching joint with maximum continuity of grain. This can be used with either plain or quarter-sliced veneers.
Veneer sheets are joined side by side, rather than turned as in book matching, resulting in a repetition of the grain figure but with non-matching joints. The result is a panel which displays maximum color uniformity and is commonly used with quartered and rift-sliced veneers.
Veneer sheets are deliberately mismatched by random selection of the pieces from one or more flitches. This produces a casual or "board-like" effect.
Arranging book and slip matched veneer leaves comes in the following methods, unless otherwise specified.
Panel faces are made from an odd or even number of equal width veneer pieces. If the panel run is large, the number of veneer pieces per equal width panel may eventually increase or decrease as the individual veneer pieces vary in width within the total flitch. Grain continuity may change on adjacent panels as a result of this, but the panels are generally more symmetrical than are running matched panels. This face matching method may be used in sequence-matched sets and is commonly used in blueprint-matched panels.
Each face is made from as many veneer pieces as necessary. If part of a veneer sheet is left over, it is used at the start of the next panel face. Maximum yield from the flitch is thus achieved and is most commonly used in producing "warehouse flitch" matched panels sets. Some of the grain might be eliminated due to trimming on flitch and sequence match, but is carefully avoided in blueprint-matched panels.
This method is used when the panel height desired exceeds the veneer length. The remedy of this problem is achieved by progressively book matching lengthwise as well as horizontally, thus achieving a uniform grain progression in both directions. Doors and transforms are matched in this fashion.
